Empowerment and delegation are both important concepts in relation to managing employees. Each involves managers entrusting employees to take on important roles in the business. However, empowerment is intended to serve as a motivational strategy, while delegation is a system of assigning work tasks to employees for positive production.

Empowerment Basics

Empowerment means enabling front-line employees to make decisions once reserved for managers. This decision-making responsibility is a key distinction from delegation, which centers more on tasks assignment. With empowerment, regular employees can handle simple customer situations and problems. Thus, if a customer approaches a sales or service employee, the worker can help resolve the customer's problem without having to consult a manager. Managers only become involved in more extreme service issues.

Benefits and Challenges

One benefit of empowerment is the sense of ownership and trust it instills in front-line employees. Allowing them to think and make decisions in the moment builds morale and helps employees feel important. It also improves customer service in many cases, since customers don't have to wait for a manager's availability to get their problem resolved. For empowerment to work, you need technically competent and confident employees and managers, who are coached to make good decisions and don't micromanage them when they do.

Delegation Basics

Delegation occurs when managers assign tasks to workers. The task emphasis of delegation is different than the decision focus in empowerment. When a manager delegates tasks to workers, he typically provides details about the requirements, including the deadline for completion. Effective delegation generally includes a follow-up step. This is where the manager checks in with the employee at predetermined points in the process and upon completion to gauge results.

Benefits and Challenges

Managers need to effectively delegate tasks to build employee involvement and create a sense of collaboration among workers. Delegating tasks also shows employees they are valued and trusted with important work. Plus, managers are freed up to make leadership designs, coach and develop employees, and monitor business needs. Managers can get extreme with delegation by parceling off work that should be reserved for management. Employees typically need to believe a manager isn't just dumping off undesirable work on them for employees to be motivated. Delegating tasks to incapable employees can lead to poor results.

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About the Author

Neil Kokemuller has been an active business, finance and education writer and content media website developer since 2007. He has been a college marketing professor since 2004. Kokemuller has additional professional experience in marketing, retail and small business. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Iowa State University.